On Oct. 1, Democrats shut down the federal government. Their goal was to force congressional Republicans to negotiate an extension for Obamacare premium subsidies. Unless Congress reaches such a deal, millions of Americans will pay significantly more for health insurance next year — a fact that is already becoming clear as Americans receive letters from their insurance companies alerting them to the premium spikes.
In the meantime, the stakes of the shutdown deepen by the day. Federal workers have not been paid for weeks, and while the Trump administration claims to have found a way to pay military personnel, their future paychecks are in jeopardy. More flights are being delayed due to TSA staffing shortages, and if key personnel stop showing up for work, it could pose safety issues.
Trump’s complete indifference to the suffering of others has made the situation worse.
Most immediately, federal food assistance for more than 40 million Americans will end on Nov. 1. As Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said, “How am I supposed to choose between those two constituencies? I care about all those people.”
This has always been the challenge for a Democratic-led shutdown. Unless the standoff was resolved with surprising speed, ordinary Americans were going to pay a heavy price — and with millions at risk of going hungry, that moment is now.
President Donald Trump’s complete indifference to the suffering of others has made the situation worse. Earlier this month, he threatened his political opponents with apparent glee: “We’ll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans, frankly, because that’s the way it works. They [Democrats] wanted to do this. So we’ll give them a little taste of their own medicine.”
Now, the White House is refusing to tap into emergency funds to ensure that Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits — formerly known as food stamps — are available to those in need.
Not surprisingly, some Democratic allies are calling on the party to fold. Earlier this week, the American Federation of Government Employees (or AFGE), the largest federal employees union, called on Democrats to end the shutdown.
The AFGE’s shift in position is to be expected, given that its more than 800,000 members are not getting paid. But if the union thought its call would move Democrats, its hopes were quickly dashed.
“We want to find a bipartisan agreement that reopens the government immediately,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. But he added, “Our position has not changed over the last several weeks.” Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen issued a statement that continued to lay the blame for the shutdown on Republicans: “Trump should spend less time traveling around the world and more time negotiating an end to his shutdown,” said Van Hollen.
Even more revealing was the response from Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, “ The issue that I’ve always been focused on … is a deal, a deal? And the AFGE would not want us to cut a deal and then have Trump fire a bunch of people next week. If we cut a deal and then he did that, they would come to us and say, ‘What the hell were you guys thinking?’”
Van Hollen and Kaine have skin in the game on this issue, since both their states are home to a significant number of federal workers. Moreover, next week, Virginia voters will go to the polls to elect a new governor, attorney general, and state legislators. If Kaine was worried about the political effect that the shutdown is having on his party’s electoral chances, it’s hard to imagine he’d publicly rebuff AFGE.
Kaine’s stance reflects Democrats’ belief that they are winning the shutdown fight — and recent polling backs that up. More Americans blame Trump and the GOP for the shutdown than they do Democrats. After nine months of powerlessness in the face of Trump’s assault on basic democratic norms and congressional prerogatives, Democrats have finally gone toe to toe with him — and they are winning.
There’s no question that the shutdown is catalyzing Democrats. But that doesn’t solve the long-term problem: Democrats have no clear shutdown exit ramp other than caving. As for the Republicans, the president seemingly doesn’t care that the government isn’t fully operating (if anything, he sees it as an opportunity to hurt vulnerable populations and states that vote for Democrats). And his allies in Congress likely won’t make a deal without Trump’s signoff. Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper summed up well the challenge facing his party, “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. I can’t remember a situation where I felt there were less palatable choices.” Here are three options for Democrats to consider. The clean continuing resolution (CR) that Democrats have blocked in the Senate expires on Nov. 15. Democrats could announce an end to the shutdown next week to ensure that food benefits are doled out, federal workers are paid, and air traffic doesn’t grind to a halt. Doing so would give Republicans more than a week to develop a compromise proposal on Obamacare subsidies before the CR expires on the 15th. If they don’t, the government shutdown resumes. Democrats could also push for a longer temporary spending measure that could go into mid-January. The advantage of such a move is that, by then, millions of Americans will have experienced sticker shock from rising health insurance costs, putting even greater pressure on Republicans to compromise on the issue. Another option would be for Democrats to end the shutdown in exchange for a vote in the Senate to extend Obamacare subsidies. Such a vote would likely fail, but Democrats could then pin blame for the coming premium increases solely on Republicans. Democrats will get pilloried for caving, but the length of the shutdown might lessen the blowback, particularly if Democrats pitch their move as an effort to prevent Americans from going hungry. From a long-term political standpoint, there is a clear upside to such a move: Health care premiums will rise, voters will get angry, and, more likely than not, Republicans will pay a significant political price next November. The dirty little secret of this shutdown is that the Democrats’ demand of restoring the ACA subsidies is a political gift for Republicans. But this is always the Democrats’ key dilemma: They care about people. How long can the party continue to allow the White House to inflict pain on ordinary Americans before the moral qualms are too great to ignore? It’s a good reminder that in Washington, being the only adult in the room is never easy.
Michael A. Cohen is a political writer and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation. 
